


amestrian catcher (set something ablaze)

by BorkMork



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: A story based on a comic, Angst, F/M, Fluff, goes back and forth in parallels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:49:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26786983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BorkMork/pseuds/BorkMork
Summary: Elope with me, Miss Private, and we'll sail around the worldI will be your Ferdinand and you my wayward girlHow many nights of talking in hotel rooms can you take?How many nights of limping round on pagan holidays?Oh elope with me in private and we'll set something ablazeA trail for the devil to erase-Glimpses into Roy and Riza’s life, back and forth from childhood to the present day. A Royai fic based on raposabranca's comic.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48





	amestrian catcher (set something ablaze)

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos to [firewoodfigs](https://firewoodfigs.tumblr.com/) for beta-reading this piece!
> 
> And, to clarify, this is based off an amazing Royai comic created by [raposabranca](https://raposabranca.tumblr.com/post/629200802970566656/way-back-in-2007-i-knew-i-had-to-do-something-with) so if you haven't seen it yet, feel free to check it out!

Roy had been thirteen when he came to the Hawkeye household. 

He had almond-shaped eyes, hands moisturized with the newest Central brand, and he accidentally jerked his elbow into the carriage’s side the moment he saw the house. Madame didn’t comment on anything. Not the overgrown grass patches, nor the dried cobblestone path to the front door. She knocked on it, tapping her heel as Roy kept watch, examining every spic and spec of the house while they waited for his new teacher to arrive.

That was the moment where he spotted a tuft of blond hair. It stuck out from the left house corner, and it disappeared quickly as if he just witnessed a ghost. He didn’t know what that was nor wanted to question it without sounding crazy. After listening to Madame and his new master talk for a few minutes, Roy was surprised to see the blond tufts come back, attached to a girl younger than him when he and Madame were ushered into the living room.

After a few days of studying, he would later know that little girl as Riza. 

And Riza wouldn’t know of his name until a week later, when she grabbed his hand and guided him into the forest for a hunt.

* * *

Riza turned twenty on her return to the line of duty. 

Her back had stopped aching, the Central skies she had gotten used to during reintegration were no more, and she had been shipped off to East City with nothing but a few boxes. All because she followed a man here, and thought it reasonable to only bring essentials, not sentimental weight.

She was given a day to get acquainted with her new apartment, of the unfamiliar tarmac streets, the new hillocks that decorated the horizon instead of geometric concrete. Riza saw it as a change of pace, but didn’t think it necessary to stop and rest. She was needed in Eastern Headquarters at seven-hundred-hours. There wasn’t a time to delay, or to give herself respite. 

So Riza brushed her hair, cleaned her teeth, and avoided looking dead-on at the mirror before heading off.

The HQ had settled a middle-sized room for her and the Lieutenant Colonel. The filing cabinets were in obvious need of unpacking. Some desks were dusty from lack of use, but the man she followed had stared at this minimal space, scrutinizing it with a slightly cocked hip and stern eyes, and told her, “We’ll make this work”. 

Riza wrote something down in her notes. At his confused hum, she replied to him finally: "Then what shall we start with first, sir?".

The beginning reminded her of disjointed puzzle pieces. Monthly attempts to resume a proper life had given her a crucial eye to her emotional awareness, one that would keep her in line if something crucial happened in the lieutenant colonel's wake. Or anything that would make people look at her as if she wasn't taking this seriously. It was humorously bitter to think about. If someone asked her a year ago about why she was here, she would’ve mocked them in silence, not knowing any better. 

Riza never thought to follow this man. Three steps behind, always cradling his schedules in a neat clipboard, ready to write something new when a superior above him smirked at how he forgot another meeting. It was like being fitted with a new coat. A new objective to relay.

Her feelings toward this man remained rigid. The beginning was the hardest out of the transition. Betrayal was a hard thing to excavate, and to understand that it came from a person who promised safety, of better days, told her enough that this wouldn’t be the end of her anger. Frustration, to her, was needed. She wanted to be angry at him, to allow herself finally the justification to feel the unfairness and disrespect given to her.

The Colonel felt it too. He never lingered at her, uttered a single word about Ishval, and didn't pull her along from the office unless it was necessary.

And yet, when the Colonel tapped three times at her desk — five months into the job — Riza realized that the anger had subsided.

A week later, she went over to his desk with the newest paperwork, responding back with three taps of her own.

* * *

The grass welcomed them as they zipped through. Roy’s legs were pedaling harder than what his poor body could handle. And as he rocketed off towards a random direction, the town receded into the back of his consciousness.

They weren’t far-off from the Hawkeye household, or the main areas for that matter, but it was enough to reassure Riza that her father wouldn’t hear her when she laughed and giggled at the rough hills and expansive plains. The countryside was a lot like the city. Instead of huge buildings, they had titanic trees, and instead of cloudy skies, they had bright autumns.

Riza pressed her face into his back. Roy dashed through the dirt trails, yelling when they took flight from bumps and makeshift ramps. At the Somerset pass, he booked it. Diving head-first into an ocean of grass, the pastures erupted into feathers and blurred wings, and they both burst into laughter.

 _Keep going_ , he thought. _She looks amazing when she’s relaxed._

Her smile was better than her reserved lips on a Monday dinner. Her smile was everything he hoped for.

“Detour!” he said.

She clasped onto his waist. Roy took a sharp turn, grinning when the dive made them plummet down the hills, both of them hollering at the top of their lungs. Their youth soaring through.

* * *

The alleyways concealed them from the general public. Times like these reassured Riza that they would be able to talk, lights and engine off, away from the hustle of the Headquarters. It was a lot safer. Because they needed to make more promises. More than just the simple “I shall follow you” that Roy had established long ago.

He was situated next to her. Through the shadows, Riza could see the restlessness in his eyes, the new scruff on his chin. 

“We’re moving up, second lieutenant,” he said.

“Yes. We are, sir.”

She gripped the wheel, watching the man beside her. His eye bags had become prominent from the paperwork, and yet he looked more alive than anything, like he had a good laugh and was going to keep being cocky for the rest of the day.

“Now, I want to clarify something.” Roy drummed his fingers on the dashboard. His gaze grew more unfocused, deep in thought. “You’ve probably noticed my nonsense already.”

“Which one?” she asked.

He frowned for a second, before giving her a small smile. “The one where I make a fool of myself, Hawkeye.”

“Ah.” It was hard to discern which of his charades were faked or driven by his impulsive nature. Sometimes he babbled out ridiculous notions that made him obvious to her of deception, but Riza had taken care to note the behaviors closely, to see if they were true to Roy Mustang, the characteristics that whispered to her that he still was a child somewhat. “Yes. I took note of it.”

Roy nodded. Despite the tenebrous, his smirk was prominent on his lips. “I had debriefed you before of personas, but now”—he gazed at her, narrowing his eyes—”I want to discuss it in more detail. To make sure we’re on the same page.”

Riza hoped for this moment. It was exhausting to see him act like this, only going off a vague debriefing and body language. She eased further into her seat, keeping an eye on the faraway exit. Silhouettes flitted past the entrance like ghosts. The citizens probably never considered if people were inside the automobile, that there were more important matters that they would never see come to light.

Roy sighed. “With the current militarized state, politics aren’t far-off with us."

“We expected this, sir.”

“True, but that means we need to be divisive on how we appeal ourselves.” Roy rubbed his chin, grumbling under his breath. “Currently, I’m the country’s youngest state alchemist. I’m also the youngest man to be given a high rank of Lieutenant Colonel.”

Riza nodded. She knew where he was going with this.

“We don’t want the ranks to see me as competent, let alone competitive.” He tapped on the dashboard again, seemingly to break the silence in-between. “And that’s where you come in.”

“You want me to contrast your behavior,” she said, lips pressed in thought.

“Not just that, but amplify the disparity.” The alleyway seemed to get darker, pulling them into the shadows. “In public, I’m now a callous man, lustful of advantage. No tact and true attachment.”

“And I’m your babysitter.”

Roy choked at that, stifling a giggle. She knew his persona came out of some genuineness, not the full thing, but it had a point of origin. “Right. That’s one way to put it. I would call you my better half.”

“You flatter me, colonel, but I need a better description than that if I plan to follow through.”

He smiled even more. Riza couldn’t help her slight smile as well.

“You’ll be seen as the most competent. Having a cold exterior shall increase the difference, and will separate you from yourself when we need to do reconnaissance.”

That made sense. She had read books before that had detailed such a thing: protagonists with the most basic of disguises, hidden in plain view with humanity staring right through them. People feared the unexplained, and their desire to explain concealed the disguised more than just the disguise itself.

“You’ve thought this through,” she mused.

“Procrastination gives me time to think,” he explained, scowling when she scoffed. “The paperwork can wait.”

“With all due respect sir, that paperwork is crucial to climbing the ranks.”

“Right.” He leaned back in his sight, letting out a heavy sigh. “I’ll get to it back home. Let’s go.”

Riza smiled to herself when she turned on the engine. Clicking the hub lights on, Riza navigated out of the passage and drove down the path, Roy’s snores trailing behind them when she took a left turn onto the familiar avenue.

* * *

For a decrepit house, Roy found it interesting that it was clean on the inside. The exterior had weeds growing on the side of cracked, unmanaged bricks; the interior was brushed clean, every corner and room organized, not a single thing out of place. Roy never asked his master, or asked if it was always like this. 

Because he knew Riza was the reason.

She brought boxes into the attic, cleaned the shelves spotless, and politely traded rabbit skins for pork. Roy would’ve called her the biggest neurotic if it weren’t for what he saw in her, what with the way she brushed off mud and blood from her teeth when the hunt was good and the bullies were insistent. He wouldn't see her for hours, sometimes days. And when she was still tired, she would rest in his room.

His bedroom was quaint. Messy, actually. After being part of the household for three years, everything just accumulated. His bookshelves, the notes strewn about on his bulletin board, and in some pubescent way, he found himself growing taller and any gossip of him had diminished completely when the first year finished. It wasn’t a lot, but he prided in the idea that he wasn't just a stranger.

On this night, Roy had been studying for hours. Master Hawkeye had seen him worthy of more advanced lessons — ones that didn’t speak of covalent bonds or chemicals in theoretical but actual application. A huge array occupied the floor as a result, lined out in white chalk, still ineffective despite Roy’s attempts. There were too many symbols to count. Earth. Air. Fire. Water. Mercury. Salt. Sulfur. Stuff he couldn't draw in deep precision, but he was determined to make them all work, to write them down on notes until he gnawed at his pens and his stomach had no choice but to eat itself in the search for sustenance.

On a new slate of paper, Roy had just finished an equation when the first hit of light blanked him. He pushed his chair a little. Through the window, dawn had broken through — outlines of clouds and forest trees welcoming him, slowly making their way in faint orange. Roy squinted, yawning as he snuffed the candle beside him with wet fingers.

He stood up. Riza was nestled into herself on the couch, blissfully unaware before he started to prod at her shoulders. She groaned, swatting at his hand. “Riza. Wake up.”

“What are you doing?” she mumbled. For a second, he saw her squint at him, almost murderous.

Roy gave her a tight smile. He wasn’t prepared to die tonight. “Master Hawkeye usually wakes up in an hour. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

The acknowledgment hit her, and she jumped off the comforter. Riza rubbed her eyes. Her groan trailed off, irritation still seeping through. “Thank you. I’ll be going.”

“Alright.” Roy smiled at her. It was best for them to do this silently, away from the eyes of the sun, without a creak from the loose floorboards. The good news was that Riza knew which ones to avoid. “Be careful. If he catches you we should stay in your room next time.”

Riza grimaced a little. “I’d rather not have you get blamed for stuff like this.”

“Well, you deserve rest, not lectures,” Roy argued.

“I know.” A sigh. “But I don’t want you to take the blame. If it was my fault then it was my fault.”

His frown grew heavy. She always was like this, yet he didn’t know how to deflect her statement, her adamant nature. If he even did, she would probably give her that fiery stare of hers, telling him “I will be stubborn till the ends of the earth” with a simple gaze. 

After a moment, Roy nodded. “Alright,” he whispered, leaning forward before she could exit the door. “Good luck. Let’s meet again in the forest.”

Riza blinked at that. “Same as always?”

“Same as always.”

The door then closed behind her, leaving Roy to watch the spruce designs of it, holding his breath. After forty seconds, he let out an exhale. 

She’d gotten back safely.

* * *

They had bought a single hotel room. Two beds, separate, enough table room to plop the documents without them slipping onto the floor. But it was fruitless. Roy loved to make a mess whenever he debriefed himself on the details, at the confidential papers and strategies they had to go through for the mission.

Riza rested on her bed. She was already in her pajamas, peering at the map on her hands. The brochure was enough, at least. They needed knowledge of the town, and trying to ask people where certain buildings were was just going to alert the smugglers of their presence. Missions breathed on the need for reconnaissance, information, but most of all, secrecy.

Roy’s mattress squeaked when he sat down. It was odd to see him outside of military wear, adorned in simple t-shirts and baggy pants as if they were kids again. Roy bounced on the bed. He heard the squeak again, scrunching his nose. “Once again. Stuck in a shitty hotel that needs better beds.”

Riza sharply exhaled. “Keep your voice down, sir.”

Roy didn’t respond. He took out his pocketbook, tapping a pen against its side. He had been writing down in it since his deployment to East City, and Riza never saw him go without it.

“Mrs. Speckmann spoke to me about abandoned factories,” she said.

Roy looked up. “Oh? She did?”

Riza nodded. She grabbed a pen of her own, circling a small section of the paper — right next to the squiggles, signifying the nearby mountain range. “Used to process coal from the mountains, until they got abandoned ten years ago. Probably accessible.”

He raised an eyebrow, chewing at the pen tip. “Probably?”

“She frequents there on walks. Says that the roads to them are blocked in spring, but half of the time they’re clear during fall. Best answer she can give is avalanche season."

Roy leaned against the wall. He had that determined look on his face again, trying to click the details as if they were puzzle pieces. Roy glanced at her, eyes wide. “That can’t be possible unless—”

“If the area had signs of alchemy, our time here shall be short.”

Roy smirked to himself. He wrote more into his book, looking pleased with her answer. “Good enough for me, Hawkeye. I like to be decisive.”

That was the thing with Roy Mustang: he liked the result with the exact outcome, the better result. When nothing goes his way he adapted. Sometimes he held his frustration in, sometimes he allowed it to burst. Each action was tactical, methodical, because the advantage was there. Every choice had to consider the big picture, the politics, and Riza found herself bitter when she thought of it too much. She sometimes missed the scatter-brained choices he had when the thought of studying was the only threat, but trying to reminisce on their youth was asking for unneeded memories. Roy needed her now in best condition.

Riza folded the map and stared at the blank wall in front of her. She didn’t know what to look for, or why she felt pulled down by the sight of it.

“We’ll meet in the forest then,” she said.

Roy yawned, giving his cheek a light smack. “Five-hundred. I prefer to see these factories when no one’s awake.”

“Mm. Then goodnight, sir.”

When she turned off the lights, Riza saw his glance. It was dangerous, that one glance. Without a word he told her if she was okay, if she needed a minute to speak in the quiet dullness of their room. But Riza Hawkeye was stubborn. 

Placing her briefcase down onto the floor, she laid down and faced the wall, hoping that sleep would take her like a bullet to the skull.

* * *

Away from the city, away from the light pollution, Roy could see the stars dance with the colorful sparks in the countryside sky. At how the fireworks scattered the sky with splatters of magenta and burning green, of glorious purples and showering blues. Riza explained that her town loved new years, and that there was a festival hidden behind the hills, people celebrating with masks and grilled food.

"Father doesn't like to be around people," she explained. "So I would stay in the house or watch from far away."

And of course, Roy shook his head and thought of better plans — ones better than just sitting on their asses, doing nothing.

In the grass, Roy had drawn an array with a piece of chalk. It took a few attempts for the borders to appear in the dirt, but he crossed his arms when he finished, smirking over at Riza with all the pride a young boy could have.

Riza exhaled. She had four fire sticks in her hand, all red and set for a reaction. “You got the geometry correct this time?”

“Of course.” He glanced down. Everything looked in order, thank God. He wasn’t just saying it out of his ass. “I’m an alchemist. I can’t make the same mistake the third time.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Sure. Check it again, though.”

“Why again?”

“Isn’t it common sense to not get in trouble for setting a hill ablaze?”

She had a point. Roy grunted dramatically, getting on his haunches to inspect the array. After a few seconds, he frowned. He drew the missing lines. Looking up, he pouted at the sight of her, her expression already lecturing him with an “I told you so”.

“Come on, you don’t have to rub it in.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

After a few seconds of tinkering, Riza stuck the sparklers into the chalk. They were in the right positions, at the very corners of the array and in his area of influence, but Roy couldn’t help but rub his chin in thought. 

He could only do a few sparks. If he wasn’t careful then the manipulation of the air could lead to a chain reaction, and Roy wouldn’t forgive himself if Riza got hurt in the process of this.

“Step aside,” he instructed her, relieved to see her pacing a great deal back. She knew the risks too, but somehow she trusted him to completion, as if the idea of fire didn’t scare her.

Roy looked back at the designs again. They were all familiar, once-written down somewhere in his notebooks, and now used for good. He rubbed his hands, trying to cool his palms with the crisp, summer air. 

_Think of the expansion. Of pure oxygen contained in the smallest amounts possible._

_Think of precision._

_Of efficiency._

Taking a deep breath, he clapped his hands onto the ground. In a burst of sparks, two sticks lit up instantly. Roy widened his eyes and shot a look toward Riza, who watched on in awe. With careful hands, Riza extracted the sparkler from the ground, face beaming up in a shower of maroon.

He watched her spin and spin, cascading in a flurry of light, smiling all the while as if the world wasn’t there to interfere. It made Roy queasy, light in his stomach, and he couldn’t help but laugh as well when she turned toward him with a controlled swing of her arm.

“Roy!”

He did pretty well. And to see her having fun was enough to make him smi—

“Roy, pay attention!”

Roy looked down. He howled when one of the sparklers, mid-aflame, fell onto his feet. 

On that same hill, Riza lugged a medkit to him, pressing antiseptic to his newly-acquired burns. She lectured him for the entire night, both bickering until all the fireworks died out.

* * *

Riza had no clue where Amestris got the concept of sky lanterns. Some say an Amestrian inventor created them, as a present for his late wife when she couldn't see the stars anymore, and it grew as a tradition from there. A few told of the idea's theft from Creta, during the border war incursions. However, the likeliest possibility was the idea that they were imported by Xingese immigrants. When the desert railroad was still functional and the people from the East talked of nightly spectacle, they celebrated their home country in beautiful silence — the night lighting up in yellow as if the sky itself had been plucked down to the earth.

She and Roy had taken a detour through one of Central’s many parks when they stumbled onto the scene. There were market stalls lined up. People yelled of games with honeyed candy in their pockets. Paper ascended into the sky, floating around them as if they were spirits, children laughing on the trails, yelling out about how they were going to catch one of the lamps. Whatever the celebration was, it looked beautiful, even if their visit to Central was supposed to be a short one.

“We have until the end of the night, lieutenant?"

Riza looked over at her superior officer. His voice sounded low as if he was trying to whisper out a message.

“Yes, sir. The dinner doesn’t happen until two-thousand-hours.”

Riza inspected his face. The expression he harbored looked familiar, detached, as if he was intrigued by the festivities around them.

“If you’re planning to watch the celebration, just remember that we shouldn’t be here for long.”

Roy nodded and started through the sea of lanterns. Riza watched as the lights floated up and above their heads, small candles inside every paper vessel. Each one had drawings, letters, notes on their heavenly cocoons. She wanted to cradle them in her hands. Hold them until the warmth overwhelmed her senses.

Adults laughed at set-up tables, drinking wine and beer until someone spilled a glass. Teenagers parsed through the food courts, danced near the fountain, and yelled up to the sky when their respective lanterns passed by. Out of all the faces she had seen, Riza felt warm at the sight of the children. They kept in their circles, giggling with sparklers in their hands, racing through the trees like deer prancing through the foliage. Kids deserved to be happy. They deserved to be young.

Both stopped at a small mound. Away from the clamor, and in the center of the luminescent haze, the colonel took to observing, watching with breathless words.

“It’s interesting how we can utilize a flame for something like this,” Roy said, eyes gazing up at the radiance above him. He was smiling, shadows crisp on his soft face. “No wonder the festival happens at night, it’s to capture the cold air against the heat."

He pointed at one. "Right there. The candle. Hot air is lighter than the surrounding space because of particle density. If it dies out, then it'll be heavy again, and it comes back down." Roy stopped. He glanced at her hesitantly. "That's the simplest explanation I can give."

Riza stared at him, trying to find the words on her lips. “It’s nice to see fire used for good, sir.”

“It is." He relaxed at that — back to his confident self. "It’s a shame we didn’t get our own. Do they have some still available?”

“There's a stall nearby.”

He sneered. “We should get one. A lovely lady could get a lantern from me, with my name and number on it, of course.”

“I’d suggest against it,” she deadpanned. “Showing more explicit signs of your interest would hurt your reputation.”

His countenance brightened, already telling her silently that was the point. But of course, she knew that. “Just another opportunity to make a good impression.”

“And another attempt to avoid the dinner, sir?”

On that small hill, Riza watched Roy Mustang laugh heartily as the sky filled with man-made stars.

* * *

Red, crisp lines. They decorated her flesh like blood, like clean-cut wounds. His digits hovered the lines, felt the hum when he passed over the formulas, and bit his lip at the sight of the geometry until he tasted iron. Roy hesitated to touch her, worrying that the moment his fingers pressed into her shoulder blades, her body would char and burn like paper.

He glanced at Riza. He saw her jaw, her pursed lips, but Roy couldn’t see her eyes or the curve of her nose. The iron taste grew on his tongue. Potent. Horrible.

“Shit.” Roy pressed his fingers into his face. He closed his eyes, hoping that the array in front of him disappeared. Her father gave her his research, she had said that for certain. He didn’t expect this. He didn’t expect this at all.

“Nothing should be missing.” Her words rattled him, left him sweating under the window light. “He made sure to keep every note. Father wanted to be thorough.”

“When?” Roy swallowed, hands shaking to his sides. “When did he do this?”

She didn’t wince, or flinch, or squirm. “Started when I was nine. He asked me for my assistance, and whenever he made a new discovery, he updated the array until I had turned fifteen.”

Roy tasted blood. Everything about this just got worse. And all he could do was just stare at Riza’s back in horror, digging nails painfully into his palms. “Riza. That’s seven years.”

“He entrusted it to me.” He hated how level her voice was, as if he was the insane one in the room. “And I trust you to study it, make good use of his work.”

“But what about you?”

“I’m fine. I trust you.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Please.” There it was, that shaky breath. “I want you to study it. Don’t make him die in vain. Use it to protect people.”

“I…”

“You promised you would.”

Roy narrowed his eyes at her. He wanted to get in front of her, to tell her that all of this wasn’t fair, that her father was a bastard, that everything done to her was not just nor needed nor sensical, and that she deserved more than what was inscribed down her back as if she were some cheap notebook. Expendable. Nothing. He wanted to look her in the eye. Tell her that there had to be a better way. But, like a coward, he didn’t.

Riza was adamant, strong. She trusted him to see her as vulnerable, shoulders bare, ready for how many hours of study. If he said no, then all that pain — no matter how much he hated to say it — would all be in vain. But somehow it felt like he was missing something, as if there was an unspoken truth between them and he was the only one who couldn’t decipher it. 

He kept staring at her back, hoping Riza turned around. She didn’t.

And out of everything, he was inevitably left with a question. A simple, painful question.

Would he allow himself to go against her wishes?

Roy gritted his teeth, then took a shaky breath. His fingers were shaking, and yet he allowed them to trace the lines, to take his attention for hours each day.

And the answer was clear:

No. No, he wouldn’t.

* * *

Riza didn’t want to remove the array in the Ishvalan capital. The main reason being that there was a sea of corpses in the ruins, and the idea of freeing herself in such a manner made her sick. She didn’t want to remove it in some random country town either. She found it stupid, childish even, but she fretted over the idea of her father looking down on her as a ghost, disdainful of the path she walked on.

But the choice to destroy the tattoo was clear. She needed to wait and research, and find an isolated place, away from the public.

Three months into reintegration, she got her wish. Roy informed her of a building on the outskirts of Central. It was desolate, filled with old beer barrels and dusty tables, but in one room she found all the materials waiting for her. Salves. Drugs. IVs. Sutures. Things she mulled over while clutching the bedsheets, wondering how Roy was able to get all of them in one place.

“It was Gracia,” he said. He was somewhere in the room — not too close yet not too far. “I asked her. Made excuses.”

Of course. She had almost forgotten about Gracia. Hughes always talked about her whenever he was present in the same regiment — which wasn’t much, but enough to know basically anything about the nurse in-question. When Riza came to Central, she had found it slightly funny that out of every traumatic thing they’d experienced, the small details became unforgettable, while the acts of killing were nothing more than blurs and feelings.

Right now, Riza thought of it as depressing more than anything.

Neither of them spoke. She wished he did, it would make the whole thing easier, or at least more palatable than letting her fear get the better of her. Backing out, however, would be a mistake. She needed to stick to this to the very end, no matter how painful the process might be.

“Major Mustang.”

Roy flinched. For someone who slaughtered millions, he didn’t hide his discomfort well. But that might have been her bitterness seeping through. Riza would’ve said the same thing to herself if she wasn’t distracted by the time, of each, slow second as the major put on his gloves.

He was probably calculating in his head, wondering how he could avoid hurting her, or at least try his best to not make lasting damage. There was an inevitability to it, this entire thing. The brown walls enclosed them like animals, and all Riza could do was wait, to see if Roy Mustang would come close to her and remove her father’s fetters once and for all.

And for a moment, she hesitated. Because what if he backed out right now and fled, like a coward, into the night? What if he lied when the procedure was done? Told her that he couldn’t do it because it would hurt her and ruin him for good?

"Lie down," he mumbled.

Her stomach pressed into the cold bedding, heart starting to pick up in her chest. Riza focused on her breathing. In and out, slow and steady.

"I'm going to use anesthetics. Is that okay with you?"

At that moment, Riza decided that her questions were ridiculous.

Despite his broken promises, Roy wouldn't bring her unneeded suffering. At least, from now on.

* * *

Heat. Explosions. That’s all they could feel, weary on their dragging feet, keeping themselves sturdy on the concrete. They had gotten back on high ground. Out of the tunnels. Blood had drained from them, holding each other as their eyes seared through the settling dust — one sharp as a hawk, one grey as the smoke. 

Both were ready to drop dead if they wanted to, but that wasn’t the priority. Their deaths wouldn’t heal this nation.

Roy Mustang kept a hold of her as the world fell onto the coalition of a hundred men and women, and Riza Hawkeye steadied him by the hip, shaking herself awake until her heart spiked at each new sound, at each new attack.

Briggs soldiers were starting to take cover in the craters. Father was right there in the courtyard — just a small speck in the decrepit remains of Central HQ. Riza gnashed her teeth. Roy squeezed her shoulder.

“He’s dead-ahead, colonel. Aim at one o’clock.”

He clapped and readied his hand.

“Adjust by six degrees to the right!”

He growled. "Stay close, lieutenant."

In an instant, everything pulsed and howled, and scorched their hairs to black.

Through their inferno, in the sweltering gale’s eye, the Colonel and his Lieutenant punctured the concrete, ruptured the heavens, and punished the devil.


End file.
